"Super Whales" Are Spending Over $10,000 On Social Games

Social gaming micropayment platform Social Gold gave Inside Social Games a look at how much its top customers were spending, and the results are pretty staggering.

The top five spenders on Social Gold's network have all pumped more than $10,000 into payments in online games. The single biggest spender, a Saudi Arabian, was good for $25,540.

Social gaming companies make their money off of a very small percentage of their customers. Over 90% of users never pay a dime. Many of those who do pay up don't pay much. Social Gold gets an average of around $60 from paying users, but the median is apparently much lower. "Whales" -- social gamers who spend at least $1000 -- are apparently an important part of the picture for these companies.

There clearly aren't very many of these $10k plus "super whales" out there, but they're nice customers to have: using Social Gold's numbers, generating $25,000 worth of revenue requires adding over 8,000 users.